How do you report on an underground music festival? We got invited by Vooruit in Ghent (BE) to work together with art students from KASK to document Uncanny Valley. We asked ourselves how to do this is in a playful, critical and unconventional way, while changing the routines of the festival.
We had the opportunity to take over the Instagram of Vooruit and gave ourselves the name Bovengronds – BRINGING THE UNDERGROUND UP since 3 mei 2018. Our team, existing of Laura Andriessen, Luca van Vliet, Nicola Marquez Sanches and us, improvised and learned from each other during the course of three days. We were given total freedom from the organisation.
We made stickers, questioning the underground and mainstream media. We made a fan club for the undervalued playing-in-between-acts-artist-and-teacher-on-KASK-DJ, Gerard Herman. We made memes and instructions on how to pose with friends. We hung out with different artists and musicians of the festival. That’s when we encountered a very long-winded discussion about decibels during the main act that we couldn’t deny. Professionals at Vooruit have a clear vision: we have the obligation to protect our visitors (ears) for their own health. The main act stayed headstrong about their artistic freedom.
As Bovengronds we made a visualisation of this discussion and taped texts about decibels on the concert floor. Despite our complete freedom, the Vooruit got confronted with their own bureaucracy and we had to email back-and-forth to get permission to put tape on the antique flooring.
In the style of de DIY culture we ended up making a small zine where we summarized our experiences.
